Beginning to Invest - All questions go here please

kevcos

General question.
I would like to invest a moderate amount of money, say 2k-5k, in large cap mining companies and some other well known companies. This will be a medium term investment, no trading.

would Internaxx and Degiro be most suitable for this? Maybe neither would!

Shedite27

kevcos wrote: »

General question.
I would like to invest a moderate amount of money, say 2k-5k, in large cap mining companies and some other well known companies. This will be a medium term investment, no trading.

would Internaxx and Degiro be most suitable for this? Maybe neither would!

Degiro would do that anyway. Internaxx costs $15 per trade versus about 50c for Degiro

kevcos

Shedite27 wrote: »

Degiro would do that anyway. Internaxx costs $15 per trade versus about 50c for Degiro

Thanks.
Just to probe further, went taking a relatively longer term position (vs day trading) perhaps it would be wiser to invest through a more established broker regardless of trade fee.
I've heard grumblings regarding Degiro on this forum, Internaxx I know have been around a while.

gamera81

Tax saving – Annual Tax Exemption

Individuals can make a Gain of €1,270 free of Capital Gains Tax in each tax year. By holding the shares in joint names, spouses can generate Gains of €2,540 tax free each year.

Does someone know how does the joint shares work? I'm registered myself on Degiro but I didn't think to do joint account like mortgage with my wife. But now after I read that I can get €2,540 tax free from shares I am digging for more information but can't find any.

My question is for anyone that may have had the same problem. Do I have to contact Degiro and ask them to change my account from single to joint account or just revenue?

iAcesHigh

gamera81 wrote: »

Tax saving – Annual Tax Exemption

Individuals can make a Gain of €1,270 free of Capital Gains Tax in each tax year. By holding the shares in joint names, spouses can generate Gains of €2,540 tax free each year.

Does someone know how does the joint shares work? I'm registered myself on Degiro but I didn't think to do joint account like mortgage with my wife. But now after I read that I can get €2,540 tax free from shares I am digging for more information but can't find any.

My question is for anyone that may have had the same problem. Do I have to contact Degiro and ask them to change my account from single to joint account or just revenue?

I think you can't have Joint account and will need to create separate accounts. Also, exception isn't transferable meaning each of you will need to sell €1270 per year

NickSantigo

gamera81 wrote: »

Tax saving – Annual Tax Exemption

Individuals can make a Gain of €1,270 free of Capital Gains Tax in each tax year. By holding the shares in joint names, spouses can generate Gains of €2,540 tax free each year.

Does someone know how does the joint shares work? I'm registered myself on Degiro but I didn't think to do joint account like mortgage with my wife. But now after I read that I can get €2,540 tax free from shares I am digging for more information but can't find any.

My question is for anyone that may have had the same problem. Do I have to contact Degiro and ask them to change my account from single to joint account or just revenue?

I contacted Degiro in Jan about putting my wife's name on my account and was told joint accounts are not something they do

ozil10

gamera81 wrote: »

Tax saving – Annual Tax Exemption

Individuals can make a Gain of €1,270 free of Capital Gains Tax in each tax year. By holding the shares in joint names, spouses can generate Gains of €2,540 tax free each year.

Does someone know how does the joint shares work? I'm registered myself on Degiro but I didn't think to do joint account like mortgage with my wife. But now after I read that I can get €2,540 tax free from shares I am digging for more information but can't find any.

My question is for anyone that may have had the same problem. Do I have to contact Degiro and ask them to change my account from single to joint account or just revenue?

To take advantage of the 1270 euro free of capital gains tax
What woukd be a safe utilities type company that pays a decent dividend

Thanks

Shedite27

ozil10 wrote: »

To take advantage of the 1270 euro free of capital gains tax
What woukd be a safe utilities type company that pays a decent dividend

Thanks

Dividends are income - you pay income tax on that.
CGT is only on the capital gain (so how much the share value goes up at the time you sell it)

Saudades

gamera81 wrote: »

I am going to put 10k for two ETFs next week.

gamera81 wrote: »

Tax saving – Annual Tax Exemption

Individuals can make a Gain of €1,270 free of Capital Gains Tax in each tax year. By holding the shares in joint names, spouses can generate Gains of €2,540 tax free each year.

Your two posts may not be related, but are you hoping to use your €1,270 Capital Gains Tax allowance against your ETF gains? Assuming it's an EU fund, I wasn't aware you could do that.

gamera81

They are not related.

I have polish and irish shares at the minute. Still thinking what to do 33% or 41% shares or ETF

bfa1509

I saw a thread on boards where people could share Disney+ accounts. Surely we could have a thread where two single financially savvy people could have a strictly non-physical marriage for the purposes of tax avoidance? (I said Avoidance not evasion, there's a difference!)

Bob Harris

tamova wrote: »

Do you have a source for this? I want to believe!!

http://www.moneyguideireland.com/tax-on-selling-shares-in-ireland.html

gamera81

Lads. I am reading about Degiro and I came across some information about the Netherlands Government who can protect my assets up to 20k euro. I was thinking to start investing three times a year with ETFs for maybe 10 years or more. Now I am not sure anymore. I started looking for funds like Zurich or Irish Life but annual fees are much higher. What is your opinion? Where will my assets be 100% guaranteed in your opinion. In 5 years time I will have more than Degiro can protect me with. Any advice welcome with Funds and fees. Hard to find how much those Funds charge per year. When I see Ishares ETF charging 0.07 or 0.20 is hard to give money to Irish Life or Zurich if I see Zurich investing in ETF's anyway.

tamova

Hi folks. Looking for peoples opinions on holding cash vs investing right now. I see a lot of people saying they're holding all their cash waiting for another "big dip", but I'm interested in peoples opinions on this approach. Since May, I've been putting the vast majority of my income in to investments as I receive it (i.e. pay day or a few days later depending on market), as I don't have any significant expenses at the moment and I'm saving a lot. I keep some cash tucked away in case I ever need it urgently, but this isn't to invest, it's just to fall back on.

Shedite27

gamera81 wrote: »

Lads. I am reading about Degiro and I came across some information about the Netherlands Government who can protect my assets up to 20k euro. I was thinking to start investing three times a year with ETFs for maybe 10 years or more. Now I am not sure anymore. I started looking for funds like Zurich or Irish Life but annual fees are much higher. What is your opinion? Where will my assets be 100% guaranteed in your opinion. In 5 years time I will have more than Degiro can protect me with. Any advice welcome with Funds and fees. Hard to find how much those Funds charge per year. When I see Ishares ETF charging 0.07 or 0.20 is hard to give money to Irish Life or Zurich if I see Zurich investing in ETF's anyway.

Degiro is a broker, they're selling you a part of a company/fund. If Degiro goes bankrupt, you still own that part of the company/fund, so you'd just need to get that transferred to another broker. Now depending what any future Degiro problems are, that could be messy, but I can't see how you'd lose the position in the underlying fund/company.

If the underlying fund went bankrupt, that's when the 20k limit would kick in.

You're comparing a broker (degiro) going bankrupt with a company (irish Life) going bankrupt. For an accurate comparison compare a company (Irish Life) going bankrupt with an ETF company (Vanguard)

Shedite27

tamova wrote: »

Hi folks. Looking for peoples opinions on holding cash vs investing right now. I see a lot of people saying they're holding all their cash waiting for another "big dip", but I'm interested in peoples opinions on this approach. Since May, I've been putting the vast majority of my income in to investments as I receive it (i.e. pay day or a few days later depending on market), as I don't have any significant expenses at the moment and I'm saving a lot. I keep some cash tucked away in case I ever need it urgently, but this isn't to invest, it's just to fall back on.

You're doing it the right way, adding as you can. Every outlet, be it boards.ie, CNBC, Twitter etc has a lot of people saying "there'll be another crach soon", and a lot of others saying "we're at the start of another bull run". So far the bulls have been right, the bears might be right by December, nobody can sure either way.

FWIW, I've been agressive in 2020. Bought shares in March which did indeed dip lower and lost money on those. Bought other shares in March that were at ridiculous lows and have gone up 100%+ since then. I've only bought shares that I'm confident will be higher price in June 2021 than they are today (don't chase quick wins)

Saudades

gamera81 wrote: »

Lads. I am reading about Degiro and I came across some information about the Netherlands Government who can protect my assets up to 20k euro. I was thinking to start investing three times a year with ETFs for maybe 10 years or more. Now I am not sure anymore. I started looking for funds like Zurich or Irish Life but annual fees are much higher. What is your opinion? Where will my assets be 100% guaranteed in your opinion. In 5 years time I will have more than Degiro can protect me with. Any advice welcome with Funds and fees. Hard to find how much those Funds charge per year. When I see Ishares ETF charging 0.07 or 0.20 is hard to give money to Irish Life or Zurich if I see Zurich investing in ETF's anyway.

I seem to be in the same boat as you in many respects;

I've just registered for Degiro;
I am also looking into iShares ETF's;
I also looked into Zurich as perhaps a safer alternative.

My complete novice observations ;

Degiro -
I've read mainly positive feedback about Degiro, and I've registered with them (3,000 on the waiting list so I expect that's another few months to wait to finalize registration).
If I choose to invest in the stock market, (it's still an if) I will probably spread the risk around various low cost online brokers; so Degiro and Trading 212 primarily. Trading 212 are based in the UK and have a compensation up to £85k. I'm also going to check out eToro but haven't researched about them yet, despite Alec Baldwin's constant bugging, and also Freetrade are supposedly available to Ireland soon, they seem quite popular in the UK.

iShares ETF's -
Again, reading positive things. They seem simple and low cost. Don't see too much difference between iShares and Vanguard.
I'm only looking for 1 or maybe 2 simple ETF's that I can invest and forget about. My good friend Warren Buffett recommends the S&P 500, but upon further research, it seems that the NASDAQ 100 has outperformed the S&P 500 in 10 out of the last 12 years (should I call Warren to let him know this?).

So I'm thinking a split between a S&P 500 and a NASDAQ 100. Maybe split 50/50. Maybe one with Degiro and one with Trading 212. Just for simplicity.

I will go for accumulating (ACC) dividends, and then just pay revenue 41% in 8 years time.
Something I can't seem to find much information about is how these online brokers communicate with Revenue. Do they send an annual report to Revenue, and then Revenue wait for you to file your returns, and then compare the two reports to make sure you're correct, not sure.

I will also go for a fund that lists the price in Euro, as I don't want to be worrying about my broker stinging me in the FOREX in the future.

Zurich -
I was looking into their Prisma Max fund. It's 95% equities with a 6 out of 7 risk rating, seems fine for a invest and forget for a lump sum or continued contributions. Returns are steady, I suspect they may be just try to track the S&P and you're paying them to do the same that an ETF would do.

No idea on their annual management fees or how they tax (annually / 8 year deemed disposal / taken from source?) . Their website has plenty of fact-sheets and large photos of children and grandparents with nice teeth, but lacking when it comes to numbers.
The fund has an offer of 1.7 - so I assume that means it's an entry fee of 1.7% to buy into the fund but I could be wrong there. (and 1.6% to sell / exit fee?).

I e-mailed them to get more information about fees and taxes, but it was like getting blood out of stone , they were really reluctant to give any numbers by email. I'm not even sure if you invest in the fund directly or if you have to go through a broker.

So I'm still doing some research everyday but I think Zurich are out of the question despite them probably feel the safest option to me, I don't think I'm comfortable with more than 20k in Degiro until I read more into their compensation scheme, and I am aiming for a simple ETF tracking the top Americans company's.

And one last thing, the sleep factor is something else I need to consider - will I be able to invest and forget, will I be strong enough to not check the share price every 3 hours, will I still be able to sleep and enjoy my life if the markets crashed for consecutive years as they did from 2000 to 2002 (severely crashed in the case of the NASDAQ 100, around 70% depending on sources) or the 40% drop in 2008.

All stone-throwers or any thoughts welcome, I'm eager to learn.

Bob24

Saudades wrote: »

I
If I choose to invest in the stock market, (it's still an if) I will probably spread the risk around various low cost online brokers; so Degiro and Trading 212 primarily.

What risk are you referring to?

As far as I know, once you own a share it is your registered property and thus it can’t be used to bail in a broker of this type of thing (as opposed to bank deposits whereby the depositor is a creditor of the bank). Am I missing another risk?

Saudades

Bob24 wrote: »

What risk are you referring to?

As far as I know, once you own a share it is your registered property and thus it can’t be used to bail in a broker of this type of thing (as opposed to bank deposits whereby the depositor is a creditor of the bank). Am I missing another risk?

Hi Bob, yes I'm probably worrying about nothing.

I may have misunderstood the risks, but it seems with T212 the share isn't registered in your own name; it just goes into a nominee account pooled with other people (as opposed to perhaps Davy who would issue your own certificate on nice paper with your own name printed on it).

And with Degiro, (well the basic account at least), your securities are prone to being loaned to third-parties, which I assume again means that the shares aren't actually your registered property.

This from T212;

13.7. Your Investments will be registered in the same name as those of other clients (pooled together with other clients’ Investments in an omnibus co-mingled custody account, like with like). This means that Investments will not necessarily be immediately identifiable by way of separate certificates. If we or our third-party nominee were to become insolvent there may be delays in identifying individual assets, and possibly an increased risk of loss if there should be a shortfall because additional time will be needed to identify the assets held for specific clients. In addition, in the event of an unreconciled shortfall caused by the default of a custodian, you may share proportionately in that shortfall.

This from Degiro;

A Custody profile is different from a Basic profile in that the securities are held separately from the lending pool of DEGIRO clients’ securities and are thus unable to be loaned to third parties.

Probably worrying about nothing but I'm just trying to get an idea of what it would mean in the case of insolvency.

Bob24

Yes the wording for T212 isn’t very reassuring alright (and with DEGIRO I tend to prefer custody accounts).

Jim2007

Saudades wrote: »

I may have misunderstood the risks, but it seems with T212 the share isn't registered in your own name; it just goes into a nominee account pooled with other people (as opposed to perhaps Davy who would issue your own certificate on nice paper with your own name printed on it).

This is not how it works. Online brokers invariably register shares in nominee accounts, it is the only way you can get instance access to the proceeds and avoid the the stock exchange settlement process.

A broker cannot issue you with a share certificate, unless they also happen to be the registrar for the particular company, other wise they must apply for a certificate for you, which is ofter why it is so expensive.

Saudades wrote: »

And with Degiro, (well the basic account at least), your securities are prone to being loaned to third-parties, which I assume again means that the shares aren't actually your registered property.

Again they are not registered in your name, unless you request it. But that is not the issue. The problem is that the are held in a pooled account and as a result in the event of a liquidation they are not clearly identifiable and you would be just another creditor.

Jim2007

Bob24 wrote: »

What risk are you referring to?

As far as I know, once you own a share it is your registered property and thus it can’t be used to bail in a broker of this type of thing (as opposed to bank deposits whereby the depositor is a creditor of the bank). Am I missing another risk?

There is not such thing as a bail in of stockbroker. It is just a standard liquidation in accordance with the law.

Unless you specifically ask a broker to have the shares registered in your name and you receive a share certificate issue by the company secretary or their agent, you are not the registered owner of the shares, but that is not the issue either.

The critical issue if a broker goes under is that your holdings are clearly identifiable in the books of the broker. If they are, then the liquidator has no choice but to hand them over. It not then the liquidator's duty is to dispose of them and use the money in the service of all creditors, not just you. I expect a pooled account does not meet those requirements.

We had that situation with Lehmans, where a certain individual was in the process of trying to buy a controlling interest in a certain mainland European bank with the balloon went up. Last I heard his still trying to establish his interest the position and recover his money.... it was a very expensive lesson.

NickSantigo

Jim2007 wrote: »

There is not such thing as a bail in of stockbroker. It is just a standard liquidation in accordance with the law.

Unless you specifically ask a broker to have the shares registered in your name and you receive a share certificate issue by the company secretary or their agent, you are not the registered owner of the shares, but that is not the issue either.

The critical issue if a broker goes under is that your holdings are clearly identifiable in the books of the broker. If they are, then the liquidator has no choice but to hand them over. It not then the liquidator's duty is to dispose of them and use the money in the service of all creditors, not just you. I expect a pooled account does not meet those requirements.

We had that situation with Lehmans, where a certain individual was in the process of trying to buy a controlling interest in a certain mainland European bank with the balloon went up. Last I heard his still trying to establish his interest the position and recover his money.... it was a very expensive lesson.

Thanks for that post.
Just wondering, I am with Degiro and have my shares in a Custody account.
Am I right in saying that because my shares are held separately from the lending pool of Degiro's clients my shares are clearly identifiable in the books of Degiro?
or Do I need to request to have my shares put into my name?

Shedite27

There's no such thing as a physical share certificate anymore, gone with the dodo. That's a notion from the pre-technology days when it was needed to keep records. It's all emails and databases now.

As for this idea of "a share with your name on it", again, do you think when you put your money in a bank, they put your name on a €20 note? You buy your share, with Degiro, Revolut or others, you can do what you want with it, sell it, attend AGm's (tho this costs €100 with DEgiro), get to veto mergers etc.

Bob24

Shedite27 wrote: »

As for this idea of "a share with your name on it", again, do you think when you put your money in a bank, they put your name on a €20 note? You buy your share, with Degiro, Revolut or others, you can do what you want with it, sell it, attend AGm's (tho this costs €100 with DEgiro), get to veto mergers etc.

Bank deposits are not to be compared with shares IMO, two very different things.

A share is a title of ownership for part of the company. I.e. it is an asset.
A bank deposit is a debt the bank has towards the depositor. I.e. it is credit.

Jim2007

Shedite27 wrote: »

There's no such thing as a physical share certificate anymore, gone with the dodo. That's a notion from the pre-technology days when it was needed to keep records. It's all emails and databases now.

As for this idea of "a share with your name on it", again, do you think when you put your money in a bank, they put your name on a €20 note? You buy your share, with Degiro, Revolut or others, you can do what you want with it, sell it, attend AGm's (tho this costs €100 with DEgiro), get to veto mergers etc.

Of course there, companies hire staff or outsource a service to manage this function. They don't do this for fun. And if you are involved in anything beyond buying a couple of shares of an online broker, you will see physical share certificates. Especially as in the case I mentioned, because it is the only way you can be sure that the players have the controlling interest.

You comment on cash is irrelevant.

And the reason why it cost €100 to attend an AGM - the broker has to do the work necessary to be able to show that you physically own the shares.

Jim2007

NickSantigo wrote: »

Thanks for that post.
Just wondering, I am with Degiro and have my shares in a Custody account.
Am I right in saying that because my shares are held separately from the lending pool of Degiro's clients my shares are clearly identifiable in the books of Degiro?
or Do I need to request to have my shares put into my name?

If the shares are held in a custody account in your name that should be sufficient.

Shedite27

Jim2007 wrote: »

Of course there, companies hire staff or outsource a service to manage this function. They don't do this for fun. And if you are involved in anything beyond buying a couple of shares of an online broker, you will see physical share certificates. Especially as in the case I mentioned, because it is the only way you can be sure that the players have the controlling interest.

Well yes I do use an online broker. When I spend 50c for a trade I don't expect something in the mail (given the stamp costs more than that). OP, there probably are traditional brokers who will post something out, but I suspect you're looking at the €20-€30/trade type-brokers.

irishlad.

When I go to pay captial gains tax on myaccount, I click into 'Make a Payment' and then 'Tax'.

I don't see an option to pay CGT, should there be one?

Taylor365

irishlad. wrote: »

When I go to pay captial gains tax on myaccount, I click into 'Make a Payment' and then 'Tax'.

I don't see an option to pay CGT, should there be one?

As far as i know, it is still a form to fill out and post, just like the 1950s